Category: PC

2014 is half-over, which means that the time is nigh to reflect on the last six months of new games. We saw some current-gen only titles drop along with a 3DS title that sought to reclaim the JRPG crown, a couple of big MMORPG releases and a game that actually made people want to buy a Wii U.

As you can probably suss out from the preceding sentence, my favorite game so far this year is Mario Kart 8. I wrote a bit about the sheer joy that playing the newest Mario Kart can bring you and I’ve yet to even dip my toes into the online mode. It even has a rather forward thinking feature for a Nintendo product in Mario Kart TV, which allows players to slice up clips of their races and upload it to YouTube, which brought us the famous Luigi Death Stare. Some might not like the serious downgrade that the Battle Mode received, but the N64 implementation of that was always the best for me and I haven’t played that mode sense.

We still have six game-packed months to go and my front-runner for Game of the Year will most likely change when 2014 is done and dusted. Even so, I’d like to know what your game of the half-year is. What games do you think will knock it off in the latter half of 2014?

Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky was the surprise hit of Sony’s E3 2014 press conference with its dinosaurs and its X-Wings and its interplanetary travel. Despite its appealing aesthetics and the way it effortlessly taps into some section of my brain that has formulated the perfect game but could never define it before now, I can’t shake this feeling that I don’t really understand No Man’s Sky.

On a basic level, I get that you’re exploring the universe, charting the unknown and discovering new species and ships. Hello Games has been purposefully tight-lipped about their game, however, only dolling out small nuggets of information. Just enough to string you along, but not enough so that you know everything going in. Continue reading I Don’t Understand No Man’s Sky, But I Am Hopeful for It

With the Steam Sale in full swing and the hot summer weather outside, there’s no better reason to stay inside and play some video games!

In this somewhat regular post series, we ask you guys a pretty simple question: what have you been playing?

Personally I’ve been moseying my way through Watch Dogs. Originally I started off doing all of the side quests but as the game has dragged on (I’m at the last mission of Act 3) I’ve kind of given up on that and am devoted to getting through the story as quickly as possible. Other than that I’ve been playing Pikmin 3, the free game I got from Mario Kart 8. It’s very fun with the gamepad, but also kind of hard, which I didn’t expect.

Other than that I hope to tackle Sniper Elite 3’s co-op, Company of Heroes 2’s Western Front Armies expansion and the Payday 2 Big Bank Heist. What’s on your plate?

Well here we are friends, at the end of our journey together for this season of the podcast. Over the last twenty episodes (and two Extra Bytes), we’ve laughed, we’ve cried and learned way too much about Eddy’s personal life.

In case you’ve missed out repeated warnings, this is the last episode of Season Three of the GamerSushi Show and we’ll be taking a break for the next few months to enjoy the summer and also not have to talk to each other on a weekly basis.

This is our E3 2014 wrap-up where we grade the conferences and talk about the third-party games, and we’d love to hear your thoughts on the whole shebang so chime in below!

Just because nobody seems to even care about waiting for E3 anymore, CD Projekt RED drop a metric ton of info about the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt earlier today, including this awesome trailer. It’s actual in-game footage (albeit with fancy cuts) as opposed to the CG-only trailer from last year. It has everything you’d expect from a Witcher game and it also looks super rad. I know CD Projekt RED said they’re drawing some inspiration from Skyrim this time around and I can definitely see that. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will come out on February 25, 2015 and will be available on the PlayStation 4, PC and Xbox One.

Dead Rising 3 was apparently only a timed Xbox One exclusive as the third (ish) chapter in Capcom’s wonderfully silly zombie-slaying franchise is coming out to Steam in Summer 2014. Not only in it getting a PC version but it’s also coming with all the standard Steam bells and whistles. This also coincides nicely with the news that the Xbox One controller can now be used on the PC. I’m excited for some co-op action and a better framerate when I finally get my hands on this. Who’s with me?

Battlelog, DICE’s browser-based interface that they’ve been forcing on the gaming public since Battlefield 3, received an update this morning. Instead of the assignments for the upcoming expansion pack Dragon’s Teeth, an entierly different kind of surprised was included.

Ubisoft’s long awaited open-world hackathon Watch Dogs is finally upon us. The embargo lifted late last night and a torrent of reviews flooded in from all over the Internet. It seems that Watch Dogs is getting fairly positive scores across the board, mostly being criticized for some funky driving mechanics and for not really being that unique of an open-world game outside of the hacking abilities.

Here are some review scores from some other websites you may have heard of:

I’ve got Watch Dogs sitting on my PC right now but InFamous: Second Son is currently taking up most of my gaming bandwidth (along with Battlefield 4 and some Company of Heroes 2) but I expect to get to it soon. I hear there’s an interesting glitch right now where taking to the river will cause you to lose your police pursuit as the Chicago PD of Watch Dogs doesn’t have a maritime presence.

We you perhaps hoping for a little gameplay footage from the upcoming current-gen only Batman: Arkham Knight today? Well, you’re in luck because we have exactly that for you. “Evening the Odds” shows off a bit of everything from Knight, including the Batmobile, gliding, and transitioning from the Batmobile to gliding. It all looks pretty great, too. Have a watch:

Batman: Arkham Knight is a very pretty looking game, no doubt helped along by the fact that it isn’t cross-gen. What did you guys think of this short glimpse of Arkham Knight gameplay?

Do you know what the definition of insanity is? Not getting a sequel to 2012’s stellar hit Far Cry 3. In a surprise leak/announcement today, Ubisoft officially unveiled Far Cry 4 which will be coming to the (deep breath here) PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on November 18, 2014.

Not much is currently known about Far Cry 4, other than that it takes place in a fictional region of the Himalayas called Kyrat and you’ll be fighting the reign of a self-appointed king. You can feast your peepers on the box art for Far Cry 4 by clicking the previous words. Looks more like a Pink King than a Yellow King to me, but maybe we’ll go to Carcosa in Far Cry 5.

Far Cry 3 was one of my favorite games of the last generation and if Ubisoft can turn around some of the less appealing aspects of that game (nonsensical “white savior” story and a rather bland second half) then we’ve got a huge hit on our hands. If the logical progression from flamethrower dubstep is elephant-riding RPG madness, then consider me sold.

Who’s on board for a little more Far Cry when it hits every consoles except the poor Wii U this November?

About a month ago I got gifted a copy of Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2 on Steam and I didn’t bother playing it until this past weekend. I didn’t expect much from it, but I was surprised at how fun it ended up being.

If you’ve played Call of Duty’s zombie mode, then the set-up will sound very familiar: four WW2-era soldiers battle the Nazi zombie horde while searching for a way to end the onslaught. The difference here is that Sniper Elite is very much focused on long-range combat, so you’ll mostly be pulling sick headshots on a lot of shambling zombies. Unlike CoD’s version, the zombies (for the most part) in NZA2 are the slow, shuffling variety so you always have a fighting chance. There are a few “super” zombies like the machine gun guy or the summoner, but as you progress the zombies don’t get faster and more resilient, which I greatly appreciated.

Nazi Zombie Army 2 is by no means perfect, as I found that actually controlling your character was fairly sloppy and the cover system was basically useless. What NZA2 does well, however, is giving you slow-motion shots of your bullets destroying undead Nazi skulls and in the end, isn’t that all we really want?

A friend and I played this for a couple of hours on Saturday and I had a blast. The fact that it was free definitely helped, but it was much better than I expected and it got me interested in the Sniper Elite franchise in general (which has a three-quel coming out, wouldn’t you know it). Has anyone played any of the Sniper Elite series? What do you think of it?

Built on the same UbiArt engine as the recently released Child of Light, Valiant Hearts is an upcoming 2D adventure game by Ubisoft Montpellier where you control four different characters and their faithful dog through several puzzles set during the first World War.

World War One is not a setting that gets explored a lot in video games, but Valiant Hearts looks like it will use that dark time in history to tell some pretty heart-breaking stories about love and sacrifice. Take a look at the trailer below:

How does this look to you guys? Are you on board? Did you try Child of Light? Valiant Heart releases on June 25 via the PlayStation Network, Xbox LIVE and various PC digital distribution platforms.

Originally the plan was for the newest Call of Duty game, made by Modern Warfare 3 collaborator Sledgehammer Games, to be revealed this coming Sunday, but you know how the Internet works. The official trailer for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is out now and it features Kevin Spacey (who is a Southern accent away from portraying Frank Underwood), drones, exoskeletons, hover bikes and much much more. If you thought Black Ops 2 was futuristic, wait until you get a load of this:

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare certainly looks nice, but there are also a lot of signs that point to it being on an upgraded version of the same old engine (I swear, I’ve watched the same running animation for the soldiers in slow-mo since 2007). What do you guys think of this reveal? Back on the Call of Duty hype-train? Can Advanced Warfare pick up after the post-Ghosts slump? According to the trailer, the release date for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is November 4, 2014. No consoles were specifically listed, except for the Xbox One version which provided the footage for the trailer.

It just occured to me that I’ve been playing Insurgency for the past few months but never made a post about it, which is a shame because this is a damn fine shooter.

Insurgency is a “realistic” team-based first-person-shooter based on an old Half Life mod. You play as either Security or the Insurgents in several gameplay modes but the kicker here is that the game is pretty unforgiving if you’re used to kill feeds, regenerating health or hit markers because it doesn’t have any of that.

The UI in Insurgency is minimal to the point of being non-existent, but for some reason that wasn’t a real barrier for me and actually makes Insurgency one of the most thrilling mutliplayer shooters I’ve ever tried. Because enemies aren’t called out for you, you have to move carefully around the environment, using the lean ability to peek around corners because one or two good shots will end you. So far my favorite weapons are the single-shot designated marksmen rifles, but I’ve been just as effective with the assault rifles or even pistols. Continue reading The Hardcore Tactics of Insurgency

It’s been a while since we’ve checked in with you, Sushians, to ask the age old question: what are you playing? We’re in-between bouts of big releases right now, so it’s a good time to take stock and see how your 2014 is shaping up.

Personally I’ve been playing plenty of Hearthstone: Heroes of WarCraft, Blizzard’s new online collectible card game (or CCG for the purpose of brevity). This is the first CCG I’ve gotten into in earnest and I’m starting to realize just how freaking bad I am at them. I’ve won one Ranked match in Hearthstone and other players regularly take me apart. I’m still learning the ropes though, so I’m confident I’ll at least get one other win soon.

Other than that I tried out a couple conversion mods for Sins of a Solar Empire. There’s the always classic Star Wars mod Sins of a Galactic Empire but I also tried out Dawn of the Reapers, a Mass Effect-themed one. Dawn of the Reapers is in very early alpha but the Reaper models are in there as well as most of the Council/Cerberus ships. I’m definitely looking forward to the end product on that one.

After an unexpected week break we’re back in your digital media player with an episode of the GamerSushi Show. I couldn’t think of a clever title this week, but Jeff, Anthony and I talk some video game news and give thoughts on what we’re playing. You know, the usual deal. We also find time to bust out a few impressions at the end.

Just in case you forgot, this is how it goes: listen, rate and we’ll catch you next time.

Watch Dogs will be upon us very soon, and as such Ubisoft is rolling out walkthorugh videos detailing what you’ll be doing in the game come May 27. The most recent video showcases the multiplayer modes, which range from asymmetrical mobile app versus in-game combat (which I saw at last year’s PAX Prime) to a four-on-four objective-oriented mode. Check out the multiplayer offerings of Watch Dogs below:

Is it just me or does Competitive Decryption Combat look like a ton of fun? What do you guys think about this glimpse at Watch Dogs’ multiplayer modes?

Fans of Patrick‘s last appearance in the days of yore of the GamerSushi Show (well, episode 83 actually) will be overjoyed to learn that the site’s most Easterly Canadian is back for another go.

Given Patrick’s stance as a Wii U supporter, it’s fortunate that we brought him in to discuss the massive Super Smash Bros. info-dump that came out this week. We also talk about out impressions of the Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number trailer and break down the beneficial changes Blizzard has brought to Diablo 3 for the new expansion, Reaper of Souls.

So listen, rate, give us five stars on Twitter and we’ll be back in your ear holes soon!